"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Thursday, January 27, 2005

Sahl-omonic Wisdom

I remember seeing Mort Sahl on TV back in the mid-1970's, so I was probably only about 8 or 9 years old. Still, I was taken aback by what popped through the TV screen at me -- an intelligent, visceral anger, tempered by truth and observation. Sahl had already been pretty much blackballed by then, relegated to very occasional talk show appearances, and basically had said "fuck it" and walked away. The machine had done its work, and of course citizens were too addled by cocaine and disco music to give much of a shit. There's only so much fight one muster in the service of heedless morons.

Apropos of nothing (or not), I came across this interview with Sahl, from 1968. Sahl had been hanging with Jim Garrison, who spent years valiantly trying to investigate the Kennedy assassination, trying to pull up the corner of the rug just to catch a glimpse of what had been swept under it. Sahl's belief in the truth willing out, in the public actually caring enough about the truth to act upon it, and his brief mention of RFK, who would be assassinated later that summer (also under highly suspicious circumstances), are actually rather poignant, removed as we are by 35+ years of the inexorable force of history.

Two quotes from this interview are incredibly relevant, and should be food for thought, fuel for action:

"If America goes, it will surely be an inside job."

"The road to fascism is paved with liberal bricks."

Just a little something to consider, in the midst of our ongoing spreading of the freedom.

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